Active Examples

An "active example" is a set of applets that combine to give an interactive example of some concept. The example is interactive since the user is able to enter some inputs and observe the result.

The simplest form is a single input area where the user enters say, an integer, and an output area where the results of some calculation, such as all the divisors of the integer, are displayed. More complex forms can have several inputs and outputs.

Here are a number of active examples for the IDA project. An initial example is given in each active example as it is loaded. Users can then try different values as they wish.

Applet Communication Failures

Sending applets try for 30 seconds to establish communications with a receiving applet. If communications can't be established, the message "Applet error!" appears in the data input box of the sending applet. If a sending applet has several receivers, it can still send data to any receivers it can communicate with, but the "Applet error!" message will remain.

If you have problems, check that the name of each receiving applet is specified correctly as the value of the appropriate applet parameter of the sending applet and that the receiving applets are named accordingly. The Java console will display more information about any communication failures. If the names are correct, then this appears to be a browser problem, since 30 seconds should be ample time to load all the applets on a page. Reloading the page with Shift-Reload may help.

Common Parameters

All these active examples have the following applet parameters There are default values provided for all of these parameters, usually 18 point plain TimesRoman in black on white, with an initial example of 30 and an input field width of 20 columns.

Special Parameters

The following applet parameters can be used with some of the applets.
Comments? Thanks.